This book is the first comprehensive critical assessment of the aesthetic and social ideals of
Lady Augusta Gregory founder patron director and dramatist of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin.
It elaborates on her distinctive vision of the social role of a National Theatre in Ireland
especially in relation to the various reform movements of her age: the Pre-Raphaelite Movement
the Co-operative Movement and the Home Industries Movement. It illustrates the impact of John
Ruskin on the aesthetic and social ideals of Lady Gregory and her circle that included Horace
Plunkett George Russell John Millington Synge William Butler Yeats and George Bernard Shaw.
All of these friends visited the celebrated Gregory residence of Coole Park in Country Galway
most famously Yeats. The study thus provides a pioneering evaluation of Ruskin¿s immense
influence on artistic social and political discourse in Ireland in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century.
